Posts tagged social media demographics

I’m involved in this fascinating new project called The Social Habit. We’re focusing the power and experience of Edison Research on the field of social media and it is producing some incredible results, including one that blew my mind.

Some of the most interesting and useful set insights have come in the area of social media’s impact on customer service.

Among respondents to The Social Habit who have ever attempted to contact a brand, product, or company through social media for customer support, 32% expect a response within 30 minutes.

42% expect a response within 60 minutes.

Our research found that among those respondents who have ever attempted to contact a brand, product, or company through social media for customer support, 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.

Whoa. Huge implications for companies and their customers.

But a deeper dive into Social Habit data reveals a perplexing new insight about companies providing service through social media:

Rich people apparently get better service. Check it out:

Now, let me emphasize that this is no casual data set. This is a conclusion from robust research and there is a statistically significant difference between those in the income “over $100,000″ category and the others. Why?

I have three hypotheses but I bet you can come up with other possibilities in the comment section.

Hypothesis one is that perhaps rich people complain to companies who are more likely to provide an effective response via social media, like an airline or luxury brand.

The second possibility, and this has somewhat of an icky factor, is that companies are baking consumer profile information (including income) into their CRM systems and respond more effectively to the people with the fattest wallets.

My friend and {grow} contributing columnist Kerry Gorgone has a third fascinating observation: “There are a number of factors at play, but I’d say the rich expect better service online because they get better service ‘in real life,’ where the trappings of their wealth are more readily apparent to customer service people. Having gotten used to a higher level of service, they make it clear they expect a response quickly.”

In other words, have the wealthy developed better complaining skills because they have been conditioned to expect better service?

I really have no idea. All of these are just guesses. But there IS a difference.

Fully 65% of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. This marks the first time in Pew Internet surveys that 50% of all adults use social networking sites.

The frequency of social networking site usage among young adult internet users under age 30 was stable over the last year – 61% of online Americans in that age cohort now use social networking sites on a typical day, compared with 60% one year ago. However, among the Boomer-aged segment of internet users ages 50-64, social networking site usage on a typical day grew a significant 60% (from 20% to 32%).

“The graying of social networking sites continues, but the oldest users are still far less likely to be making regular use of these tools,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and co-author of the report. “While seniors are testing the waters, many Baby Boomers are beginning to make a trip to the social media pool part of their daily routine.”

In a separate question, when social networking users were asked for one word to describe their experiences using social networking sites, “good” was the most common response (above). Overall, positive responses far outweighed the negative and neutral words that were associated with social networking sites (more than half of the respondents used positive terms). Users repeatedly described their experiences as “fun,” “great,” “interesting” and “convenient.” Less common were superlatives such as “astounding,” “necessity,” and “empowering.”

“Social networking sites continue to cement their place as a significant part of mainstream online life,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, a Research Specialist and co-author of the report. “Even as some users find their experiences with social networking sites frustrating or overwhelming, most seem to view the services positively on the whole.”

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